User authentication systems play an important security role in data protection as sensitive data is increasingly stored behind electronic authentication walls. Mobile devices, computers, and secure rooms may all be protected by various types of authentication. Many mobile devices may authenticate users using a four-digit pin or a simple fingerprint, for example. These authentication systems tend to limit access to sensitive data to those individuals having the correct authentication key. However, single-factor and/or weak authentication techniques may be more readily attacked than stronger counterparts.
Many authentication mechanisms today can be classified as simple authentication mechanisms. The simple authentication methods may, for example, use single-factor approaches. The technology available to attackers has progressed and may threaten the security of many simple authentication mechanisms. The vulnerability may extend to multi-factor authentication methods that depend on two or more such simple mechanisms. For example, in a 2-factor authentication mechanism, a user may be required to enter a password in addition to scanning a finger print. Both the password and the finger print scan representation individually are considered “simple” authentication mechanisms. The fingerprint and password are checked independently of one another, with neither having any bearing on the validation of the other. The combination of simple authentication mechanisms without a logical linkage between them may limit the resulting security benefit, leaving such simple authentication mechanisms vulnerable to potential attacks.